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Christmas Truce Football Game

So here is the setup for a wargame of the 1914 Great War Christmas Truce.

We are using Troll Ball rules, four men to a side.

The set up is pretty basic. Faux trenches on either side of the board. There is black felt under the board, which is made with muddy brown (Folk Art "nutmeg") terrain boards (using this technique, but much simpler). The village bits are for flavor. The clock tower in the upper right is one goal and the comms tower peeking in at the lower left corner is the other one.

The mud is regular terrain, but the snow is smooth, so the ball moves double over it.

Each side gets two different player stats - two figures with more attack than defense and two figures with more defense than attack. The Germans are more reliable, but lower power. The Brits are more dynamic. Higher power but less reliability. Since I had a doctor and nurse for each set, we used both of them as the higher defense figures and a pair of trench fighters for the higher attack.

The two litters are also in play. Collecting the dead from No Man's Land was a part of the event, so each side will move the litter bearer figure around the board. Since the truce was a true cease-fire and though the participants were friendly and traded songs, jokes, and memorabilia as well as singing carols and holding services together, it was still a war, and a bit tense ane eerie for both sides. So, for the game, if you kick the ball into a litter bearer, it is bad form. You break the truce and the hostilties restart. Your high command calls to see what caused this. So ... you automatically lose the game.

The ball is just a rolled up bit of foil on a 15mm base.

Here is the starting formation. Both had the two combatants near the center and the non-combatants back on the wings. We rolled both dice to determine the first turn.

The game was a pretty decent Troll Ball play. The addtion of the instant-lose figures moving around the base was interesting. Both sides kept them orbiting on the fringes of play, and they affected what was considered a good lane to advance the ball. Only once was the ball kicked toward a stretcher. The ball stopped short (Whew!) and was cleared by the next figure at a right angle.

This is typical of the type of amoeba soccer you get out of a low player game. Both sides did keep a man on the outside to chain the ball in hopes of a breakaway.

Since the game was Christmas Truce, figures were not allowed to attack or kill each other. They were still allowed to push other figures down and out of the way. The British nurse turned out to be very successful at this. By keeping my Germans in the mud and spending their movement to stand back up, this probably contributed significantly to SWMBO's British victory for the game.